This paper deals with the results of a survey, carried out in two Italian “Saturday schools” (in Rome and Milan) and several private schools in Israel, where second generation children of Russian-speaking immigrants have the opportunity to maintain and develop their first language. These bilingual children were born in Russia or in the host country, or came to it at a very early age. In these schools the so called “heritage speakers” meet each other to improve Russian language, which is risking to disappear under the pressure of the dominant language. In some cases Russian has already become their second language. All the children, both in Italy and in Israel are given two relatively simple tasks (a reading-comprehension test and a guided story telling test) in order to study and compare their oral and written competence in the Russian language. The results obtained from the survey will be analyzed on the base of the scientific literature for the study of heritage speakers (Polinsky, Kagan, Niznik, Protasova). The transmission of Russian to immigrants’ children represents a big challenge, especially in mixed families, where communication strategies adopted with children are essential to their linguistic success. The results of the survey show that all these children have common difficulties at different linguistic levels, so they could share common teaching materials and special strategies for bilingual children.
"Po-russki govorim my s detstva..." Iz opyta neformal'nogo obučenija russkomu jazyku v Izraile i v Italii
PEROTTO, MONICA;
2014
Abstract
This paper deals with the results of a survey, carried out in two Italian “Saturday schools” (in Rome and Milan) and several private schools in Israel, where second generation children of Russian-speaking immigrants have the opportunity to maintain and develop their first language. These bilingual children were born in Russia or in the host country, or came to it at a very early age. In these schools the so called “heritage speakers” meet each other to improve Russian language, which is risking to disappear under the pressure of the dominant language. In some cases Russian has already become their second language. All the children, both in Italy and in Israel are given two relatively simple tasks (a reading-comprehension test and a guided story telling test) in order to study and compare their oral and written competence in the Russian language. The results obtained from the survey will be analyzed on the base of the scientific literature for the study of heritage speakers (Polinsky, Kagan, Niznik, Protasova). The transmission of Russian to immigrants’ children represents a big challenge, especially in mixed families, where communication strategies adopted with children are essential to their linguistic success. The results of the survey show that all these children have common difficulties at different linguistic levels, so they could share common teaching materials and special strategies for bilingual children.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
